Issue(s): Ghost Rider #40
Cover Date: Jan 80
Title: "The menace of the Nuclear Man!"
Credits:
Michael Fleisher - Writer
Don Perlin - Penciler
Don Perlin - Inker
Roger Stern - Editor

Review/plot:
Ghost Rider's insane motorcycle stunt of the issue is crossing in front of a speeding train...

...which maybe doesn't seem that impressive to my eyes, which have been jaded by CGI films, but i guess it was a big part of the book's appeal at the time.

After that, the Ghost Rider changes back into Johnny Blaze, who is feeling exhausted and drained from the transfer, and he winds up getting hit by a car in front of the house of an old scientist and his daughter. The scientist turns out to be a famous (Johnny has heard of him) former nuclear physicist who has subsequently become an anti-nuclear activist thanks to the fact that radiation mutated his grandson (no, it's not the clown)...

...and so he strangled it in its crib. Yikes! And the guy is very happy to have an audience; he quickly drags Johnny down to his basement to show him what he's been working on, which turns out to be a nuclear powered exoskeleton. From there we quickly get into ranting territory, and it seems like we know where this is going, but suddenly we're in a different movie altogether, with mobsters.

But the scientist is quickly convinced that working with the mobsters using his nuclear suit will help scare the public about nuclear power, so he agrees, and doesn't hold back on the violence.

Yikes again.

He doesn't hold back on smacking his daughter around, either.

In fact, he winds up killing her.

Ok, wait. This is the insane motorcycle stunt of the issue, and i am impressed.

And that's how our Nuclear Man is killed.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: I'm not sure if it matters, but the MCP places Ghost Rider's appearance in Marvel Team-Up #91 between this issue and next, so i've pushed this back in publication time a bit to accommodate.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Ghost Rider vol. 2